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Leading into my sophomore year of high school, band was the center of my life. Providing acceptance and a sense of purpose, I could always count on the fine art to get me through the hardest of days. Everything seemed to effortlessly go right while encompassed within the band world. I was convinced that my desires would invariably be provided for, as I was somehow the special (albeit, shy) exception. With this entitled mentality, I felt invincible going into my first serious audition. On the first Tuesday of every August, our band is deep within the thralls of marching season. Over three hundred students have been perfecting the art of marching, preparing themselves for the infamous Tuesday Varsity tryout. Based on what our directors have seen at these auditions, lists are created. The Junior Varsity (JV) list contains those who are believed to need another year to mature. The Varsity team, on the other hand, begins learning our anxiously-anticipated show the next day. Following a grueling freshman year on JV, I was ready to step up and become a member of the Varsity team that I so admired. …show more content…
These notions fed into my ‘special exception’ ideas, and I became confident in my Varsity placement. At 8:12 that evening, I saw friends on social media erupt in excitement, having earned their long-awaited spot. Pulling up the newly-posted list, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the “Junior Varsity” label attached to my name. The sight left me in tears, bitter towards the world of band. After so many years of not knowing where I belonged, this organization had taken me in, only to deny me what I thought was deservedly mine. In a fit of self-pity, I locked myself in my room, and wished I could forgo ever facing the world
Sweat dripping down my face and butterflies fluttering around my stomach as if it was the Garden of Eden, I took in a deep breathe and asked myself: "Why am I so nervous? After all, it is just the most exciting day of my life." When the judges announced for the Parsippany Hills High School Marching Band to commence its show, my mind blanked out and I was on the verge of losing sanity. Giant's Stadium engulfed me, and as I pointed my instrument up to the judges' stand, I gathered my thoughts and placed my mouth into the ice-cold mouthpiece of the contrabass. "Ready or not," I beamed, "here comes the best show you will ever behold." There is no word to describe the feeling I obtain through music. However, there is no word to describe the pain I suffer through in order to be the best in the band either. When I switched my instrument to tuba from flute in seventh grade, little did I know the difference it would make in the four years of high school I was soon to experience. I joined marching band in ninth grade as my ongoing love for music waxed. When my instructor placed the 30 lb. sousaphone on my shoulder on the first day, I lost my balance and would have fallen had my friends not made the effort to catch me. During practices, I always attempted to ease the discomfort as the sousaphone cut through my collar bone, but eventually my shoulder started to agonize and bleed under the pressure. My endurance and my effort to play the best show without complaining about the weight paid off when I received the award for "Rookie of the Year." For the next three seasons of band practice, the ache and toil continued. Whenever the band had practice, followed by a football game and then a competition, my brain would blur from fatigue and my body would scream in agony. Nevertheless, I pointed my toes high in the air as I marched on, passionate about the activity. As a result, my band instructor saw my drive toward music and I was named Quartermaster for my junior year, being trusted with organizing, distributing, and collecting uniforms for all seventy-five members of the band. The responsibility was tremendous. It took a bulk of my time, but the sentiment of knowing that I was an important part of band made it all worthwhile.
Band is family. When your student walks onto campus, he or she is instantly adopted into the strongest society on campus. They will be spending their school days among the top achievers on campus, with fellow students who look out for one another and steer each other away from trouble instead of towards it. Teachers, staff, parents, and volunteers watch over all the kids as if they were their own.
George Helmholtz, as the head of the music department at Lincoln High School, is very determined with his regular students and the gifted musicians of the band. Each semester and year at school he dreams of “leading as fine a band as there was on the face of the earth. And each year it came true”. His certainty that it was true was because he believed there was no greater dream than his. His students were just as confident and in response, they played their hearts out for them. Even the students with “no talent played on guts alone” for Helmholtz.
Payne, B. (1997). A review of research on band competition. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 33(1), 1-21.
One of the biggest decisions of my high school career came my sophomore year when I decided to try out for the role of drum major in my high school band. This decision was very tough to make due to the fact that I was a sophomore, and although I already had three years of experience under my belt as a band member at Northview High School, I knew that it would be very tough to earn the respect of my peers if I succeeded in becoming drum major. Out of the three years I had spent in the band, the biggest influence on my decision to try out came from my very first marching season, between August and December of 2012. From that year forward, after seeing many areas that the band could improve, watching how underclassmen and middle school band members
Madsen, Clifford K., David S. Plack, and D. Patrick Dunnigan. “Marching Band As A Recruiting Organization for the University: A Case Study.” Journal of Band Research 43.1 (2007): 54-62. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
“If at first you don’t succeed try , try again.” At the age of six I was starting to play football. The game was a hard hitting running and commitment. I was six years old at the time now I’m fourteen a freshman in high school a lot has changed.
I had made it through all the rounds. Now “move ins” were upon us. After school let out for summer break in May, I moved into the campus where we would spend a couple of weeks really working out the 13 minute show we would compete with. Never in my life did I think music, the thing that I loved most, would also be the thing I sometimes abhored. Move ins carried on at a grueling pace. 7 a.m. came, and we were on the field practicing until 9 and sometimes 10 o'clock at night. The only breaks we got were for water, and our three meals; though honestly I can say I never wanted to quit. There were over two hundred other people going through the same things I was, and they weren’t giving up. We were constantly picking each other up, pushing ourselves to the next level, and getting up and doing it all again the next day. I wouldn’t give up now, not after everything it took to get
The members of each marching band gradually develops an impenetrable, socio-economically distinct society. Within a marching band, students organized a culture of expectations and acknowledgements of individuality that maintained a capable assistance group, that an abundance of students described to a perception of family. The quantity of these friendships in this organization help reinforced students’ personality within the group’s general identity, thereby adequately generating a balanced marching band group identity for individuals’ commitment to the composite integrity. Although in the end, a strong group identity always involves the individuals that participate in the group and, these individuals work around the obstacles to bring in the balance not convinced from other’s terrible
been in band for three years in middle school, high school band was a whole new world full of
A boy who has his fun in music, and wants to pursue it. Being a teen about what evs most of the time, wasn’t really excited for high school.His high school was not funding the band, so the music and instruments are very old and damaged. That is the equivalent of having a bad sports team, like someone else’s interest. His band teacher is trying to ask the district to fund band for the students, but he doesn’t see any changes even one year later and now it is his Sophomore year. He had vowed himself to stay in band in his school life, that includes college. But the question to him is “Why am I just in band?”, he should do more than just be a member of band. He began his music studies, then took interest in marching band. Joining the school’s
Over the summer, I was excited to be joining Symphonic, but I was also somewhat terrified. I would be the only new member of the alto section, and the only non-senior. I would also finally be directly next to Caitlyn Bell, the best saxophone player in the school. She was an amazing musician, and I had looked up to her since middle school. Although I was excited to play with someone so great, I was also worried that I would look horrible next to her. I had often been compared to her and in her shadow, so this was my chance to prove that I was just as good as she was. I also knew that my entire section had been together the previous year, and all were friends outside of band. I knew I would be the odd one out, and was desperate to win their approval.
Over the past four years the band program has been the biggest part of my life. It has given me so many opportunities through performing, arranging, competing, and just becoming a better musician as a whole. Coming into a band as a freshman is a very daunting task. All the upperclassmen in the band are better and at times can be a little harsh. But at the same time those upperclassmen become your first friends in the horrific world that is being a freshman in high school.
The very first day of highschool, I got off the cheddar cheese colored bus and started up the walkway toward the glass, double doors. Mrs. Ware was standing three feet away from the double doors in her in four inch heels that matched her black, fitted two-piece suit when she greeted me with “Morning” in her southern accented voice. I passed the main office, that was filled with frustrated parents and students, and headed toward that band hall. Finally, I reached that band hall. The band hall was a place of peace and security for me because I wasn’t a social person, and all my friends were in the band. Anyways, on a typical school day, everyone would put their instruments together and before the bell would ring we would hustle outside to form the arch to warm-up. Then we would run the part of the show we had perfected and then worked on the other parts that looked and sounded horrendous. This continued until marching season was
Band is the common factor that unites our past. Everyone in this program understands what it means to sacrifice. Together we have experienced night turn to morning, hundreds of hours rehearsing become a ten-minute performance, and working under unfair circumstances amount to seemingly nothing. I can say with great confidence that band has been the most challenging choice I have ever made.